Update: January 20, 2012 – The new site is live! Please have a look around, and let us know what you think, here in the comments, on our Facebook page, or on Twitter @ClubSnell.

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Coming soon, the Northeastern University Libraries will launch a redesigned web site at library.northeastern.edu. The site is the result of over a year of planning and building by myself and my Web Team colleagues Annie DeVane, Amanda Rust, and Diann Smothers along with the staff of the NU Libraries who helped us along the way.

Many of you and your friends in the Northeastern community participated in usability testing, surveys and focus groups as part of this project. The resulting site is designed to be easy to use, and takes into account the primary functions you need when visiting the library online. It was a lengthy and robust process, we’re excited about the results, and can say with gratitude that it all began with you.

The new homepage welcomes visitors with our familiar Discovery search as well as a NUCat search option. Links to our most popular services, like Room Booking, Ask a Librarian, and Interlibrary Loan are prominently displayed. New features include a redesigned menu, site search, and plenty of engaging exhibits, polls, featured resources, and news. A dropdown at the top of the homepage allows for selection of targeted resources for different types of users.

Built on Drupal, an open-source web content management system, the new website is flexible, configurable, and allows for innovation and sustainable growth going forward.

The site is the first part of a number of initiatives and redesigned online services planned for the coming year, including improvements to searching and room booking.

The top of the page will have a link to a form for you to contribute your feedback. You can comment there, or on this blog, about the new site. We look forward to hearing from you!

4 Comments

I think the new Web page is dramatically WORSE than the old one. I can’t tell you how much I dislike it. Let me mention just three features of the new site that are substantial steps backward.

1. It used to be possible to limit a NuCAT search by keyword, title, author, etc. So far as I can tell, this can’t be done anymore. So if I want to find books by, say, Woodrow Wilson, instead of just listing the books he wrote, it provides a list of everything that is about him or includes his name in the title. Good luck combing through 300 or so items just to find the few books he wrote.

2. There used to be a tab that took you directly to the list of library databases. It has now been eliminated or at least it isn’t easily findable.

3. There used to be tabs at the top that allowed you to go to MyNEU and the faculty-staff directory. Those tabs have now been put at the bottom where they are much more difficult to access.

As far as I’m concerned, this new home page is terrible. I can’t believe you spent a lot of time and money on such a huge step backward.

Sincerely,

William G. Mayer
Professor of Political Science

thomas urell,
January 25, 2012:

Professor Mayer,

Thank you for your detailed feedback. The best way for us to manage our new site is through hearing what users need. I can speak to some of your concerns here, and then we will take your feedback into consideration with ongoing site development.

3. The changes to the structure of the page, including the location of the header and footer toolbars, are part of a University-wide website format change, and is something we are still dealing with ourselves. We will continue to collect feedback to provide to the University about usability.

Again, thank you for your feedback. We hope to continue to work with our users to provide the best possible website.